- published: 03 Sep 2013
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Roald is a village on the island of Vigra in the municipality of Giske in Møre og Romsdal county, Norway. Roald is also the old name for the former municipality of Vigra. The 0.79-square-kilometre (200-acre) village of Roald has a population (2009) of 742, giving the village a population density of 939 inhabitants per square kilometre (2,430 /sq mi).
Roald is about 20 kilometres (12 mi) north of the city centre of Ålesund, connected via two undersea tunnels which opened in 1987 (and will be going through extensive upgrades starting in 2008). Ålesund Airport, Vigra is 2 kilometres (1.2 mi) south of Roald.
Roald Hoffmann (born July 18, 1937) is an American theoretical chemist who won the 1981 Nobel Prize in Chemistry. He is the Frank H. T. Rhodes Professor of Humane Letters, Emeritus, at Cornell University, in Ithaca, New York.
Hoffmann was born in Zolochiv,(Ukraine) to a Jewish family and was named in honor of the Norwegian explorer, Roald Amundsen. After Germany invaded Poland and occupied the town, his family was placed in a labor camp where his father, a civil engineer familiar with much of the local infrastructure, was a valued prisoner. As the situation grew more dangerous, with prisoners being transferred to liquidation camps, the family bribed guards to allow an escape and arranged with Ukrainian neighbors for Hoffman, his mother, two uncles and an aunt to hide in the attic and a storeroom of the local schoolhouse, where they remained for fifteen months, while Hoffman was aged 5 to 7.
His father remained at the labor camp, but was able to occasionally visit, until he was tortured and killed by the Germans for his involvement in a plot to arm the camp prisoners. When she received the news, his mother attempted to contain her sorrow by writing down her feelings in a notebook her husband had been using to take notes on a relativity textbook he had been reading. While in hiding his mother kept Hoffman entertained by teaching him to read and having him memorize geography from textbooks stored in the attic, then quizzing him on it. He referred to the experience as having been enveloped in a cocoon of love.